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With the release of their eighth studio album, Behind Beyond, via their own imprint label on July 9, 2013; Northern California's the Mother Hips will celebrate their 20th anniversary as a band. This album follows their 2009 studio release, Pacific Dust, and a four-disc retrospective compilation, Days of Sun and Grass, both of which garnered critical praise from outlets including The New Yorker, Mojo, Relix, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and cemented the band's reputation as creators of "California Soul." Co-founded by principal songwriter/lead vocalist Tim Bluhm and guitarist/vocalist Greg Loiacono, the Mother Hips has spawned its own community and even its own rock festival, Hipnic. Held at Big Sur, Hipnic is now in its fifth year and has featured like-minded California bands including Cass McCombs, Jackie Greene, Al Jardine, Neal Casal, Dawes and others.
It's been a long, winding journey since their 1993 debut on Rick Rubin's American Recordings, Back to the Grotto, through to the present day, which finds them in full charge of their own careers. Through it all, the Mother Hips are self-sustaining and, 20 years in, continue to operate as a cottage industry. The band also has its own beer and its own wine.
Behind Beyond, recorded over the past year at Mission Bells Studio in San Francisco with co-producer Dave Simon-Baker, finds Bluhm wading cautiously into midlife, exploring thoughts of mortality as if it were a hazy dream. Loiacono, the man behind the many instrumental passages that weave through the album, says that this album "stretches out a lot more than any of our other records." There's a sense of ease with these songs, from the laid-back feel of "Isle Not of Man" to the psychedelic guitar interplay of "Jefferson Army."
Bluhm is the tall, rugged, frontman that pulls the listener in while Loiacono is the compact, explosive guitar ace that drives the music. But it's their partnership -- the unique, almost brotherly way they sing and play together -- that defines the band.
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